German, 60, Admits to Involvement in 1980s Terrorist Group
January 23, 2009
Prosecutors claim the unnamed defendant was the ideologist of the Revolutionary Cells, which conducted non-lethal gun and bomb attacks on Germany.
Judges at the anti-terrorism court in Stuttgart said the Berlin man's admission was part of an agreement with prosecutors that foresees a two-year prison sentence which will be suspended for good behavior. Prosecutors will drop allegations that he was in the Cells from 1976 till 1994, agreeing his membership began in 1985 only. The group petered out in the mid 1990s.
Man turned himself in
The Cells were a paler imitation of the Red Army Faction, which unleashed a paroxysm of violence in 1977. The Baader Meinhof Complex, a movie about the RAF has won a nomination for this year's Oscars.
The defendant, who had been wanted for years, turned himself in in 2006.
The Revolutionary Cells, which claimed German political asylum policies were racist, shot and wounded Harald Hollenberg, a Berlin immigration official, in October 1986 and mounted a similar attack on a judge, Karl Guenther Korbmacher, in September 1987.